


Three Is The Magic Number

by Devilc



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: Future Fic, New Year's Resolution Challenge, New Year's Resolutions 2009, Other, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-15
Updated: 2010-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-06 07:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Devilc/pseuds/Devilc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt and Tim work things out down in San Antonio State.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Is The Magic Number

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Setissma](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Setissma).



> The prompt was: "I would be all over some Tim/Julie or Matt/Julie (or, hell, even Tim/Matt/Julie, because who isn't all over that one). First time is a plus, although I'm happy with pretty much anything. Bonus points for the whole h/c "Tim and/or Matt have fucked up lives and Julie's pretty damn good at making that a little better" thing. Extra bonus points if Tim manages to be monogamous and the good guy we know he is."
> 
> Thanks to Poisontaster for her beta and feedback. This story is much better for her guiding hand and/or foot to the ass.

****

Grandma Saracen had a stroke about a month after Matt started at Dillon Tech.

She survived.  

The resulting weakness on the left side of her body combined with her Alzheimer's meant she would need a nursing home for the rest of her life.

Her doctor told Matt about an experimental study for patients like her being run out of South Texas Medical Center in San Antonio.  If she got accepted, Grandma would have round the clock care in a top nursing facility for one year, and even if she only got the placebo pill, the physical therapy and the stimulation of interacting with people would certainly help her in making the fullest possible recovery.

Coach and Mrs. Taylor, God bless them, drove him and Grandma to San Antonio for an evaluation.

He applied for a transfer to San Antonio State the day that Grandma got accepted into the program.

Mrs. Taylor asked him about going to SAS, and in the end, Matt thought she respected him more for sticking by his Grandma instead of heading to Chicago and the Art Institute.  Yes, it broke Matt's heart every time she called him Joel, or got confused and frightened and threw a tantrum, or said that she was "sick of all these doctors" and was "fixin' to call a Taxi" so she could go home.  It mattered to Matt that Grandma had never left him or let him down.  It mattered to Matt that he could be in a place where he could check in on her as often as possible because damn if he was going to leave her or let her down.

Coach edited a little film together in case Matt wanted to try for a walk on at San Antonio and gave him Tim Riggins' phone number.  

As soon as he heard that Matt was coming to SAS, Tim insisted they room together.  On his way back to Rice, Landry dropped Matt off at the dorms and said something to Tim about "now that Matt's here to help you with your papers, you can take me off your speed dial" as he drove away. Tim flipped him the bird, hooked his fingers in to Matt's shirt collar and said, "C'mon Seven, we're going to see Coach Powers.  Snag that tape of yours." 

Matt found himself invited to tryout for both Wide Receiver and QB positions as soon as walk-ons started in August.  Tim also noticed that the number 7 was free.  "I hope you get that 7, Seven. I can't be bothered to learn a new one for you."

Through a work study grant, Matt got a job working at the SAS Art Gallery.  He liked the idea that someday that would be _his_ Senior Project hanging on the walls.

He visited Grandma every chance he got.

He studied hard and trained hard.

And that was that.

(Except he missed Julie.)

(A lot.)

~oo(0)oo~

"I got in to Trinity!" Julie gushed during their weekly phone call. "I got some scholarships that pay for more than half of it!"  Matt had hoped she'd come to SAS and save him from the ... well, not exactly horrors, but more like the (mis)adventures of rooming with Riggins, but hell, if a place like Trinity University (or even St. Mary's) had offered him a full scholarship instead of a partial, he would have chosen them, too.  Not that the Fine Arts department at SAS sucked ass or anything.

The good thing was, at least it meant he'd be seeing Julie on a regular basis as soon as Fall Semester started.  Maybe he could get her to come over and help Riggins with his papers ... and listen to him bitch at her about how Landry was better at reading out loud than Matt was.  (Matt had thought he was going to get out of reading to Tim ever again the night he pulled out Goodnight Moon and made a big production of reading it to Tim and tucking him in.  Nothing doing.  He came back the next afternoon to find Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, and Horton Hears a Who waiting on his bed.  Landry, whose idea it was to try Goodnight Moon in the first place, suggested he try Brokeback Mountain next and see what happened.  Matt hung up on him.)

Oh yeah, weirdly enough, Tim was kind of serious about school.  He'd never be a stand-out athletic scholar, but he applied himself a hell of a lot more than he had back in high school.  "I can't believe I'm seeing Tim Riggins actually interested in classes," he joked one afternoon when he came home to find Tim chipping away at a Psych assignment.

"Maybe it's because they teach you things that are new and interesting here, instead of the same crap over and over again, like they did in High School."

Outside of Math? Matt didn't remember High School being like that. "I dunno," he said with a meaningful glance at his Calculus book, "I'm almost nostalgic for a 100 problem quadratic equation worksheet right now."

"Speaking of quadratic equations ..."

Crap.

(Well, at least he wouldn't be reading several chapters out loud to Tim.)

~oo(0)oo~

"Seven, you are scrubbing the tile with a toothbrush." 

"Julie's coming over tonight.  I can't let her see this!"  

Coach and Mrs. Taylor had driven Julie down last weekend and helped her get moved into her room at Trinity.  And, yeah, they had an amazing time going out to dinner, and to the riverwalk, and a million other things, and through every moment, Coach had had a _gleam_ in his eye.  A gleam that said he knew _exactly_ how much Matt wanted to spend some quality time _alone_ with Julie this weekend and that would happen over his dead body.  Hell, Coach had even insisted on inviting Tim along on Sunday, just to pour salt on the wound.  The only good thing that had come out of that was that Matt now had several potentially useful and embarrassing photos of Tim being all coochie-coo with Gracie Belle (who howled like a banshee when Tim handed her back to her parents at the end of the day). He smiled at the memory of Tim with a wailing toddler clinging to his legs.

"Seven, you do know that we share this bathroom with two other guys, right?"  Tim's voice snapped Matt back to reality.

Matt sighed and rested his head against the (newly cleaned, piss-spot free) rim of the toilet.  Shit.  It was probably going to go back to looking (and smelling like crap) as soon as one of them used it, and he wanted everything to be nice when Julie came over tonight.

Tim grinned down at him. "I'll talk to Jake and Eddie.  I got your back, Seven.  Always."

For all that Tim needed his hand held to actually write more than a three page paper, was a bit too casual about just hanging out in his undies, drunk dialed Lyla at least once every weekend, and _really_ wasn't as quiet as he thought he was whenever he had "a hot date with Rosy Palmer", sometimes, it kind of rocked to room with Riggins.

~oo(0)oo~

After an evening spent at the movies with Julie, they got back to the room to find a note in Tim's bold scrawl on Matt's bed.  "I'll be home by 2am.  You know what to do.  (And you'd better use condoms.) Tim.  PS.  Julie, the scented candle in the bathroom is for you.  I hope magnolia is OK."

~oo(0)oo~

Just after Winter break during their Sophomore year Lyla broke up with Tim. Over the phone.

"At first, I thought he was going okay," Matt confided to Julie over lunch at their favorite hangout.  "Seemed really calm about it.  Accepting.  Even waxed a bit philosophical about how they'd agreed it was okay to see other people, that they'd talked about what long distance relationships meant, that in his heart of hearts, he knew this day was coming and it was better to have 'loved and lost Lyla than never to have had her at all.'" 

Julie cocked her head and nibbled on her straw.  "How bad is it?"

Matt sighed.  "Okay.  You've got to believe me when I say what I'm about to say: _other than her, there has been nobody._" 

Julie burst out laughing until she realized he meant it.  "Damn." Then burst back into giggles at the sheer, mind-boggling absurdity of Tim Riggins being faithful. "_Nobody_ nobody?" she asked.

"Nobody."  And you do not even want to know how much time he spent beating off because of that.  I mean, I thought I was as horny as the next guy, but no.  Not even close.

"Annnddd?" Her expression shifted to something more thoughtful.

Matt swallowed hard.  "He's been making up for lost time."

"I see."  He could tell by her tone that, no, Julie didn't fully get it.

He took a deep breath, blew it out, and said, "Three days after, he started some serious drinking and brought a different girl home every night for a week. I'd come home from work or studying to find him and some girl -- I'd spend hours in the hallway just waiting for it to be safe to come in.  Spent a few nights out there, too.  Halfway through the second week,  I said 'Fuck it' and just walked in and flipped the lights on,  acting like he and some chick weren't right there, going at it --"

"No!" Julie gasped, eyes dancing with laughter.  "What happened?!"

"She screamed, but he didn't miss a beat, just told her to ignore me."

Julie clapped a hand over her face as the light bulb went on.  "That's why you've been insisting we spend so much time at my place these past few weeks. Oh God. I can only imagine."

No.  You can't.  Not really.  "I thought it would give him the hint."  Matt shook his head.  "Nope."

Julie's eyes flew open.  Her bangs caught in her lashes.  "You mean --?!"

Matt nodded.  "At least he's been going with the same girl almost every night the past two weeks.  I think she kind of _likes_ having an audience."

"Uggh!"  Julie rolled her eyes and shuddered delicately.  "I can't imagine that's easy to sleep through."

"It's not."  I don't sleep.  I lay on my side, back to them, ear plugs in, and even still I can hear.  Smell it, too.  And it's hard.  Really hard.  In every sense of the word.  

"You should talk to him."

Matt snorted and rolled his eyes.  "Hey, Tim, go bang her some place else, I need to sleep?"

"You do need more sleep," Julie insisted. "You look like shit. Seriously. If he's not, like, better in few days, we can stage an intervention.  How are his classes going?"

"Not well. The first week he blew them off. He made it to two the second week.  This week he's missed anything before noon because he's too hungover. Thank God it's not football season, or we'd be fucked."

Julie piffed air up through her bangs, which needed trimming yet again, then smiled and footsied him.  "Don't worry, we'll put foot to ass."

He leaned over the table and kissed her. "Yeah, I guess we better."

"If not us, then who?"

~oo(0)oo~

As soon as he cracked an eye open, Matt could tell by the light that he'd slept through his morning English class. Shit. He had a vague memory of hitting the snooze on his alarm around 7:45, but beyond that? Nothing.

He had to piss like the Niagara. A peek through the bathroom door showed Tim at the sink, brushing his teeth, so Matt sauntered in, headed straight for the toilet, and let her rip. Normally, he'd wait for some privacy, but today? Hell. No.

Tim, damn him, didn't bat a bloodshot eye.  "Have a good time last night?" he asked.

"Better than you did, even though all I did was toss and turn," Matt sniped back, shaking himself dry. Only, his words didn't have the effect that Matt thought they would.  Tim's toothbrush clattered to the floor as his hands white-knuckle clenched the edges of the sink. His face crumpled as he _shook_ with the effort of keeping it together.

"Riggs?" He swallowed. "Riggs, are you okay?"

"No, Seven, I'm not," Tim said in a squeaky little voice. "I'm really, really not."

Matt sucked in a deep breath.  Now or never.  Low and slow he said, "I'm going to call Julie and you are going to shower and get dressed and then we three are going to have a _long_ talk."

"Okay," Tim choked out.

~oo(0)oo~

The talk, when it came, ironically was one of the shortest Matt ever had.  In fact, he barely got to speak.

Julie entered the room, took one look at Matt (sitting expectantly, legs crossed, in the middle of his bed) another at Tim (perched on the edge of his bed, head down except for a quick glance up as Julie came in the door, legs jittering) and smiled sadly before saying, "Matt, why don't you go down to the lobby?"  She held up her phone. "I'll text you when we're done."

"Huh?" he asked, but the look in her eyes said _just go_, so Matt did.

Thirty minutes later his phone buzzed.  "all done."

Matt stepped into the room and felt a little stab of jealousy at the sight of Tim's head in Julie's lap as she stroked his hair. He felt like an asshole for even being jealous a second later when he sat on his bed and got his first real look at Tim's sniffley red nose and even redder and now puffy eyes.  Okay, so _that's_ why Julie asked him to leave.  How she'd known that Tim Riggins was going to break down and cry just by looking at him, Matt would never understand. Feeling like he'd entered The Twilight Zone, he silently waited on his bed for one of them to say something.

Tim sat up a moment later, fumbled for the Kleenex, blew a prodigious amount of snot into it, wadded it up, made the across the room shot into the basket (of course he would, he's Tim Riggins, Matt thought a little sourly) cleared his throat, looked Matt square in the eye, and in a froggy voice, croaked, "Seven, I'm sorry I've been such a drunk asshole lately."

Matt gave him a lopsided grin and held out his hand as he stood up. "Hey man, been there. Done that." Only, my talking to involved Coach throwing me into an ice cold shower with all my clothes on.

Tim bear-hugged him so hard Matt felt his ribs creak.

_Alrighty, then_.  Really, totally in The Twilight Zone.

~oo(0)oo~

Matt kissed Julie while waiting for Tim to get back from the bathroom.  It had been Tim's idea to go to Six Flags as soon as finals ended, and, like with everything else they'd done together since _that day_, the three of them had had a fantastic time.  He mentioned that to Julie when Tim took a trip to the bathroom -- that bit about the three of them always having a good time together. "Even when it's doing things like pulling all nighters to cram for finals, or driving all over God's green earth trying to find parking."

Julie tilted her head to one side and then the other as she thought about it.  "Well, considering all the time he spent with Jason and Lyla?  He's probably used to being the third person and knows what to do so it's not weird and awkward."  She paused and added, "Unlike Landry."

Matt laughed and pecked her cheek. "Y'know, some day, I'm going to get bored with you being always right."

"Nuh-uh," she said.

"Uh-huh," he insisted. 

"Matt, a slice of advice," Tim said as he came up from behind and threw his arms over both their shoulders, "just shut up and agree with Julie.  I'm telling you now, she's always right."

Julie smiled at  Matt -- that smile that let him know she was never going to let him live this down -- and then she whipped around, and with a loud "mwah!" kissed Tim on the cheek, which made his face flame for some strange reason.

~oo(0)oo~

"I cannot believe we are doing something as lame as taking a sex purity quiz," Tim grumbled as he flopped in the bean bag by Matt's bed and cracked open his third Lone Star, "because you two are going to score like, 95, 'Pure as the Driven Snow', and I'm going to have a negative six, 'Burn In Hell', or something."

Julie stuck her tongue out at him.  "You can leave at any time, you know."

"Nah, I'm comfy right here.  Get on with it." He reached out and prodded her with a toe. "Who knows, you two might turn out to be as pure as the driven sleet."

Matt worried that it was just going to be embarrassing and lame, but it turned out to be a hell of a lot of fun (Julie explaining that yes, she had written an erotic story, and then having to explain what fanfiction was and how Supernatural had "broken the fourth wall" in terms of fanfiction but that she "shipped" Dean slash Castiel, not Dean slash Sam) and games ("Have you ever had sex while fully clothed -- unzip fly, hike up skirt?" Tim:  "Yes."  "Have you ever had sex standing up?" Tim: "Yes, while fully clothed."  "Have you ever had sex in a public place" Tim: "Yes, while fully clothed and standing up.") until Julie hit the question "Have you ever ever given a blow job?" ... _and Tim said yes_.

The silence was so sudden and absolute that Matt could hear Julie's pen hit the bed, bounce off the covers, and go clattering onto the floor.

And Tim, damn him, just looked up at the both of them with a completely flat and calm "well, what did you expect?" expression on his face as he picked up the pen and handed it back to Julie.

Julie simply said, "Oh," as she accepted the pen, took a breath, and moved on to the next question, "Have you ever --"

"W-w-wait a minute here," Matt said, stuttering like he was back in Dillon High, "_Tim?!_"

Tim sighed heavily, chugged half the bottle, belched, and said, "Matt, as it happens, you're the only one of my high school QBs I haven't fooled around with."

The world rocked on its axis, and a logjam of things to say got wedged in Matt's mouth.  What finally squeaked out was: "Even Voodoo?!"

"Voodoo was never my QB," Tim said coldly. "He wasn't anybody's anything."

"Anybody else? Or are you strictly into QB's?"  Julie's eyes gleamed wickedly.

Tim paused for a moment and grinned so hard he dimpled.  "Tight Ends, too -- as long as they're named Landry."

Julie bounced on the bed, nearly jostling Matt off. "I knew it! I knew it!"  she squealed, eyes sparkling with joy, and why was she so damn happy about this?

Matt had to resist the urge to pinch himself really hard to make sure that he wasn't having some sort of mega fucked up dream.  Because ... Landry?!  Matt liked to think that there were no secrets between Landry and him.  Okay, not that he told all his secrets to Landry ... because Landry was a motormouth and sometimes let things slip.  That was just self-preservation.  And yeah, Landry had kept that thing about whacking that guy who almost raped Tyra from him, but ... still.  (Landry?!  _LANDRY?!!_)

"So," Julie leaned forward eagerly as she went to the next question on the page, "Have you ever --"

Tim rolled his eyes and laughed.  "No, I've never fucked a guy or gotten fucked. Yes, I've given and gotten a finger back there -- both girls and guys.  Yes, I've been in a threeway, but not with Landry and Tyra, and no, I'm not going to tell the details of what I've done with who. I don't kiss and tell.  Much."  He picked at the label of his bottle and the smile on his face shifted to something cloudy.  "Look ... is this whole thing is some attempt by you to bring up the topic of having a threesome with me? I don't -- I'm done with being on people's checklists."

"You sound awfully bitter about that," Matt replied.  "Must have sucked to have a wild sex life."

Heat flared in Tim's eyes, but his voice was oddly calm when he finally replied, "Yeah, Matt, it kind of did.  A lot of the people I've been with didn't want me, they just wanted to say they'd _been with me_.  And yeah, I fucked them all, and a lot of other things, too.  And I even had some fun doing it at the time, because, hey, it got me off.  But," he swallowed hard and closed his eyes, and his voice shifted to something soft and strained, "But I've also been with people who liked me for me. Two of them even loved me ...."  His voice trailed off and the silence that followed felt like several months, not several seconds. "And yeah, God knows I spent the better part of last month trying to fuck away the pain.  But I'm done with that now," he finished firmly.  He opened his eyes and gave them a cool, direct stare. "And for the record, I've been done with being a notch on somebody's bedpost since the end of my Junior year."

"So, what? You're becoming monk next?" Julie asked with a pitch perfect amount of tease in her voice.

Tim smiled as he bit back on a snicker. "Well, no, I wouldn't exactly go that far."

"Good." Julie beamed. "And for the record, if Matt and I ever ask you for something like that, it will be because we want you for you, and your experience is just the cherry on top."

"What I want to know is why hasn't Tim tried to sleep with me," Matt blurted before he could stop himself.

Tim snorfled, shot him a "are you for real?" look, and said, "Seven, do you _want_ to sleep with me?"

Matt thought about that for a moment.  He liked Tim. He would even say that Tim was a handsome guy.  And hey, a blowjob's a blowjob ... except if he had to give it.  "No, not really."

A wicked little glint entered Tim's eye. "What about Landry?"

"Hell no!" Matt gasped, shuddering slightly at the thought.

Tim grinned at him. "Then there's your answer."

"So, does this mean that we can get back to taking the test now?"  Matt asked, hoping it was the right thing to say.

"_Please_," Tim groaned.

"Okay," Julie announced in a slightly too perky voice, "I'll mark off several things that we now all know the answers to -- unless Matt has any bombs he'd like to drop --" she glared a warning at him through her bangs. "And that brings us to: have you ever licked someone's anus?"

Matt's stomach lurched at the thought.

Tim said, "On purpose, no.  By accident, yes."  Pause.  "It was almost pitch black in her room, we were both very drunk, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, legs spread, and I completely got the angle wrong when I went to get things started by giving her a big stem to stern lick."  He took a quick swig from his bottle and added, "And yeah, shit pretty much tastes like you think it would."

As he and Julie rolled on the bed, howling with laughter, Matt had to admit that for all of the disadvantages and (mis)adventures and TMI that sometimes came from having Tim Riggins in your life, there was never a dull moment, either.

With him, at times like this, three wasn't a crowd.

It was the magic number.


End file.
